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How should I get from El Salvador International Airport (SAL) to Choluteca?

I can’t fly from SAL to Choluteca apparently, and I had to cancel my rental car due to unforeseen restrictions.  So I need another way to get to Choluteca. Rome2Rio says I have to drive¹ to the city, take a bus to Tegucigalpa, stay overnight, then take a bus to Choluteca.  Both buses pass through a town close to Choluteca, but I haven't been able to to find a bus company that will admit to being able to get on or off there.

Rome2Rio offers an alternative: bus via San Miguel to the border (but they won't identify the company), then get that car out of the luggage and drive half the remaining distance before getting back on another bus.

BusBud doesn't know El Salvador exists.  Centrocoasting doesn't have anything on Honduras. Don't have time to walk or bike.  Google and Maps.ME don’t have transit info for the area.  Apple can’t find a route by any mode.

I’ve found web pages claiming hitchhiking in the area is very safe and effective and others claiming it’s very dangerous.

I could walk or bus to the Pacific but can’t find any evidence of a ferry to the bay near Choluteca.

Uber quotes “$148-200” but their website suggests there is only one driver in the area.  I found a local that I have reason to trust who will drive it for $100 but if I can’t find a return route three days later, I'm also in trouble.

¹Unfortunately, the car wouldn’t fit in my carry-on.  But I did find that there are shuttles from the airport to the city.

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  • So put the car in your checked luggage, duh. Even if you were planning to take just carry-on, checked luggage doesn't cause that much of a delay.
    – David Richerby
    Commented Sep 3, 2018 at 16:27

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I googled "Bus routes Honduras" and arrived at the site horariodebuses.com.

I put my cursor in the From box and above this data entry I clicked on List of Stopping Points, scrolled to the bottom and selected San Salvador from the international destinations. I manually entered Choluteca in the destination box (but you could also have selected it like I did for the origin)

Using today as the date, this gives me 2 buses going from San Salvador to Choluteca, one leaving at 11:30 AM and the other at 03:00 AM. The trip duration seems to be 6 hours. They also give you a bus company name and phone number so you can call and verify.

One of the bus routes listed has a link to ticabus.com which seems to have a comprehensive website in both Spanish and English (although their English version still includes a bit of Spanish) that covers Central America. The route you would be interested in runs from San Salvador to Managua and runs through Choluteca. And you have a choice of Executive or Tourist classes. But I can't see how on their site to select that you want to get off at Choluteca - but the round trip price to Managua is $US90 or $US70 depending on class.

The other link on that site was broken, but I googled an obvious name from it and came up with platinumcentroamerica.com which also seems to have the information you want. Albeit they want to charge $US102 for the trip to Managua.

Without local knowledge this is the best I can do. And obviously it will be up to you to get from SAL to San Salvador.

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  • GREAT site, thanks! It refused to allow me to cross the border, but it did give me buses every half hour to the border, and 25 minutes apart from the border. "routes" was not one of the words I thought of in all my searches. I looked at Tica and Platinum; don't remember why they didn't help.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Sep 3, 2018 at 18:30
  • The site, unfortunately, tells me that the last bus to cross the border will leave before I can get to where it starts from. So, it's either hitchhiking or paying an acquaintance in the SW corner of El Salvador.
    – WGroleau
    Commented Sep 3, 2018 at 23:27

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